The Mammography Radiographer
Hello. I am a senior radiographer. All the radiographers who work with mammography are women. When you come in for this examination, first of all I shall check that you are the right lady by asking you your name, your address and your date of birth. Once you are in this room, no one will be walking in and you cannot be seen from outside.The mammogram does not take very long to do at all, only about 5 minutes per woman. I shall ask you to undress down to the waist, then to place your breasts on the black shelf at the bottom of the x-ray machine. We do this for each breast in turn. Usually, we take two x-rays for each breast at different angles. In order to make the picture look clear and sharp, we have to put a little bit of pressure on the breast, by lowering a plastic panel (called a 'paddle') on to the top of the breast. Some women find this uncomfortable, but most say that it was much better than they thought it was going to be. If your breasts are particularly tender, especially if you are coming up to your period, you may find mammography more uncomfortable, but most women after the menopause say that they notice very little pain at all. As I lower the paddle down on to your breast, I shall ask you whether it is getting uncomfortable and I can release the paddle at any time if we need to. Sometimes the paddle and the shelf feel a little bit cold, but they are smooth with no sharp points.
The glass screen in the room is where the controls for the x-ray machine are. I have to stand behind this glass screen when I take x-rays because, although you are only having one mammogram, I take thousands and thousands and would be exposed to quite a lot of x-ray if I always stood next to the women during the tests. I am only behind this screen for a few seconds and the mammogram itself takes much less than a second to do.
To take your mammogram, I usually ask you to stand up because the breast tissue is best shown when you do. However if, for some reason, you cannot stand up or you are in a wheelchair, mammograms can be done while you are sitting down. When the mammogram is being taken, you will hear a little buzzing noise, which is just the x-ray tube warming up. The breast will not feel warm or, indeed, any different - it is rather like taking a photograph. After I have repositioned your breast for the second view on one side, I shall do two views on the other side and then, when I have finished, you can get dressed and wait for your result in our waiting room. Sometimes there are no doctors to report the x-rays and it may take a few days for us to get a report back to you or send it to the doctor in the clinic. This is always the case on the Mobile screening vans.
Occasionally, an x-ray does not look very clear and we need to repeat one view or another. Sometimes we do special views, where tiny paddles are used to press on just one small area of the breast. These can give 'magnified' views, as well as moving away bits of tissue so that we can see what lies underneath them. Most ladies do not need these special views but, if we need to do them, they are just like the normal mammograms. There is a small delay at the end of the test, while we process the films to check that the films came out right, rather like processing a photograph.